


Bitter

by pastel (cloudboy)



Category: unOrdinary (Webcomic)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Introspection, One-Shot, TW: mention of torture, a bit of profanity, crosspost, pre-144, tw: mention of rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 09:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20207329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudboy/pseuds/pastel
Summary: John can't understand for the life of him what he's doing wrong. He's only doing what the powerful have always done - so why is he punished and hated for it?





	Bitter

For John, all was right with the world.

Arlo’s cherished hierarchy was crumbling in his hands, with the King himself trapped, gradually being driven to anxiety-induced madness, under his descending boot heel. A sultry, influential high-tier was at his beck and call, relatively content to indulge even his most carnal desires so long as their shared goal of ripping Arlo to shreds was achieved. The very mid-tiers that tormented him as a quasi-cripple cowered in savory terror beneath the shadow of his mask; the high-rankers not aware of his true identity remained deliciously oblivious to their impending doom, certain that he wouldn’t get past their incompetent, equally as oblivious Queen. In disappointingly quick but immensely satisfying beatdowns, he’d already steamrolled a decent chunk of the power structure – the bizarrely clingy Jack, Zeke, Abel, and of course that mewling bitch Isen.

As far as John was concerned, he was already victorious. He knew he was, actually.

He was unstoppable.

And yet, somehow, “all” still seemed like a bit of an exaggeration. The revenge was sweet, but not sweet enough. Oh, the tingle that ran up his spine at the rising panic in students’ voices when they whispered “Joker” was gratifying...but not gratifying enough.

Maybe it was a subconscious thing, a desire to prove his value to society now that he had come into such incredible power. By convention of the current social order, his level should have done that for him. He was a god now, one so formidable that even titans melted before him. And John was sure – delighted, even – to tyrannize over them, just as they tyrannized those below them. Even from behind an inky curtain, he already ruled Wellston with an iron fist, the way all high-tiers were taught to do. The sheer power he wielded, the power he’d always dreamed of having, was intoxicating.

But the overwhelming veneration he was promised as a bonus was nowhere to be seen.

There was no respect in his peers’ – his _subjects’_ – voices or in their eyes when they spoke of the Joker, though their distress was salty-sweet on his tongue. They murmured amongst themselves about the brutality with which he was ascending the ranks, and they deemed him a monster for his bloodshed. Anger and trauma mixed would rise whenever he listened to them talk; it wasn’t their place to judge him. It was of no concern to them how he chose to climb the ladder. So what if he asserted his dominance while keeping his identity safely hidden behind a mask? So what if he put his useless opponents in the hospital after their laughably short rank-matches? Their abilities were like gnats when juxtaposed with his power; they were in no position to question his methods. That was the stance that any sane high-ranker would take.

It confounded John, the violently adverse reaction the authorities had had to his quelling of the mutiny at New Bostin. Instead of turning a blind eye, as they did with mid-tiers’ ruthless subjugation of those less powerful, he’d been stripped of his title and expelled immediately. His name, the other students had spat and jeered as he was cuffed and led in disgrace to a prison transport van, would go down in history as the worst King who ever lived. Never in his life had he felt so abandoned as during those three months spent in darkness and torment at the readjustment facility; it was likely that, more than the torture and the rape and the mindfucks, that broke John’s heart. The system was designed to protect the powerful, like him; why, then, had it betrayed him, the most powerful of all? Why was nothing he ever did considered satisfactory?

It hurt. He’d never admit it, as long as he lived, but it hurt.

John liked to pretend that the wounds of that time had since healed; if anyone ever asked if the memories of the facility were painful, he’d tell them that he didn’t care anymore. It was true, to an extent; the pain that came with recalling those months was no longer sharp, but replaced instead with a dull, throbbing ache. But the experience had made him bitter, twisted his personality, a fact of which he was only very acutely aware. Even despite the sliver of him that did recognize his plight, he couldn’t bring himself to care.

Power, after all, was the only thing that mattered in life.

If it took a hundred bloody beatings before Wellston’s whining hypocrite of a King finally broke and groveled at John’s feet, then he would dole out two hundred. If Cecile, too, double-crossed him and betrayed her own values by turning on her rightful King, he would disregard the aid she’d once provided him altogether and punish her as severely as any other insubordinate weakling. They would know their place. John would make sure of that.

It stung to realize that Seraphina could never know this side of him; it was too dark, too merciless, for her to reconcile with the warm, smiling John that was her best friend. He yearned to tell her that the blood and thunder in the Joker’s wake was all for her, that every bruise she was dealt, every bone that was broken, drove that ever-present knife just a little deeper into his heart. He wished he could let her know that he was only breaking the hierarchy before it broke her first. He wished she could know that he loved her so very passionately, with a deep kind of purely platonic love that transcended even the type between a pair of smitten lovers. Seraphina meant more than the world to him – and that was exactly why he couldn’t risk revealing the Joker’s identity. He already knew that he couldn’t handle losing her, too.

So anonymous the Joker would remain – undefeatable, invincible. An untouchable deity. Let them call him violent; let them whisper in the halls. He wouldn’t stop until Seraphina was happy, until Wellston acknowledged that the hierarchy Arlo had set up was absolute shit, until those fucking mid-tiers finally learned to keep silent, until the King surrendered his crown.

John was going to break the system everyone so loved and adored. And he was going to make sure that it stayed broken. ♥

**Author's Note:**

> (Crossposted on Wattpad.)


End file.
